Bereavement in their death to feel
Whom We have never seen --
A Vital Kinsmanship import
Our Soul and theirs -- between --
For Stranger -- Strangers do not mourn --
There be Immortal friends
Whom Death see first -- 'tis news of this
That paralyze Ourselves --
Who, vital only to Our Thought --
Such Presence bear away
In dying -- 'tis as if Our Souls
Absconded -- suddenly --
Water makes many Beds
For those averse to sleep --
Its awful chamber open stands --
Its Curtains blandly sweep --
Abhorrent is the Rest
In undulating Rooms
Whose Amplitude no end invades --
Whose Axis never comes.
Just so -- Jesus -- raps --
He -- doesn't weary --
Last -- at the Knocker --
And first -- at the Bell.
Then -- on divinest tiptoe -- standing --
Might He but spy the lady's soul --
When He -- retires --
Chilled -- or weary --
It will be ample time for -- me --
Patient -- upon the steps -- until then --
Hears! I am knocking -- low at thee.
The Mountain sat upon the Plain
In his tremendous Chair --
His observation omnifold,
His inquest, everywhere --
The Seasons played around his knees
Like Children round a sire --
Grandfather of the Days is He
Of Dawn, the Ancestor --
How Human Nature dotes
On what it can't detect.
The moment that a Plot is plumbed
Prospective is extinct --
Prospective is the friend
Reserved for us to know
When Constancy is clarified
Of Curiosity --
Of subjects that resist
Redoubtablest is this
Where go we --
Go we anywhere
Creation after this?
Pain has but one Acquaintance
And that is Death --
Each one unto the other
Society enough.
Pain is the Junior Party
By just a Second's right --
Death tenderly assists Him
And then absconds from Sight.
"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see --
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency.
Their Height in Heaven comforts not --
Their Glory -- nought to me --
'Twas best imperfect -- as it was --
I'm finite -- I can't see --
The House of Supposition --
The Glimmering Frontier that
Skirts the Acres of Perhaps --
To Me -- shows insecure --
The Wealth I had -- contented me --
If 'twas a meaner size --
Then I had counted it until
It pleased my narrow Eyes --
Better than larger values --
That show however true --
This timid life of Evidence
Keeps pleading -- "I don't know."
Floss won't save you from an Abyss
But a Rope will --
Notwithstanding a Rope for a Souvenir
Is not beautiful --
But I tell you every step is a Trough --
And every stop a Well --
Now will you have the Rope or the Floss?
Prices reasonable --
Snow beneath whose chilly softness
Some that never lay
Make their first Repose this Winter
I admonish Thee
Blanket Wealthier the Neighbor
We so new bestow
Than thine acclimated Creature
Wilt Thou, Austere Snow?
I prayed, at first, a little Girl,
Because they told me to --
But stopped, when qualified to guess
How prayer would feel -- to me --
If I believed God looked around,
Each time my Childish eye
Fixed full, and steady, on his own
In Childish honesty --
And told him what I'd like, today,
And parts of his far plan
That baffled me --
The mingled side
Of his Divinity --
And often since, in Danger,
I count the force 'twould be
To have a God so strong as that
We should not mind so small a flower --
Except it quiet bring
Our little garden that we lost
Back to the Lawn again.
So spicy her Carnations nod --
So drunken, reel her Bees --
So silver steal a hundred flutes
From out a hundred trees --
That whoso sees this little flower
By faith may clear behold
The Bobolinks around the throne
And Dandelions gold.